Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 18:39:52 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: toor@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson) Cc: unknown@riverstyx.net, dyson@iquest.net, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD: The Storage Wars Message-ID: <199903301839.LAA15833@usr06.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <199903261129.GAA08569@dyson.iquest.net> from "John S. Dyson" at Mar 26, 99 06:29:33 am
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> > Don't be intentionally ignorant. As I stated above, there are patches. > > Logically, one might take that to mean that Linux developers can indeed > > figure out how to do it. Fanaticism is soooo irritating. > > Well, why isn't it in the distribution? Why has it taken soooo long? The > key is that I listened to the user base, and did some seriously grungy > programming. There was little elitism, but simply to do what was needed. Why doesn't FreeBSD FS stacking work? Why was X.25 broken, and then not fixed? Why was LFS broken, and then not fixed? Why does the VM system like to write password database pages back to the crontab, if you stress the system by running newsyslog once a minute from a cron that modifes copy-on-write pages mmap'ping the password database into code, as if the pointers in the pwent pointed back to static buffers in the C library? Why does it take more than one floppy to install, when we have sufficient BIOS thunking technology that a boot floppy doesn't *need* any native drivers for hardware? Why is the resolver still in the C library, instead of in "libresolv"? Why is it single threaded? Why is it hopelessly out of date? Why hasn't anyone with any official standing with the project contacted MITRE for their FreeBSD NetBEUI implementation? Where is IPv6? Where is the IPv4 compatability, with IPv6 enabled by default as the transport of choice? Where's the FreeBSD nsswitch code? How is it possible that professional engineers can still check in code that won't build when it's checked out? In a more general sense: Why are most of the Usenix papers scheduled this year not about work done on FreeBSD, if FreeBSD is the premeire research OS? Where is the research? FreeBSD has it's own problems in the "show me the money" vein. > made, and FreeBSD development being mired in short term expediency. In > fact, the FreeBSD solution has been being discussed on the Linux mailing > lists, and wonder if they looked at what we did? It is much easier to > copy a design, than to actually think... Linux has shown a willingness to implement design that FreeBSD has only given lip service to, time and again. Linux is, unfortunately, where research is taking place. > It seems that fanaticism is where an inferior decision is being made, > whilst a correct solution already exists :-). A little verbal sparring > is nowhere near the insanity of wasting effort with reimplementation. E.g., FreeBSD's implementation of a kernel linker *after* Linux? I tried to implement a kernel linker for FreeBSD, and was met with a "not in *my* kernel". I had to settle for an inferior external linker mechanism; and viola, LKM's were born. Similar stories exist elsehwere in the history of the project: POSIX threads, the addition of system calls, like "issetuid" (or whatever). Julian's right; someone needs to do real architectural work. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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